People crowd the bodies of those slain while attacking the headquarters of the Hungarian communist party, their bodies covered by flags with the communist emblem torn from the centre, Budapest, 30 October, 1956 [1042×1552]
People crowd the bodies of those slain while attacking the headquarters of the Hungarian communist party, their bodies covered by flags with the communist emblem torn from the centre, Budapest, 30 October, 1956 [1042×1552]
Flags with holes (HU. “a lyukas zászló”) very quickly became the uniting symbol of the short-lived revolution against hardline Stalinists in the governing party. The simple but strongly symbolic act of ripping out communist symbols was naturally repeated elsewhere, eg. during the Romanian Revolution in 1989 and the 1990 reunification of Germany.
As for this photo in particular, it was taken after revolutionaries had successfully seized the Budapest offices of the Hungarian Workers’ Party. Around 20 people – civilians, policemen, soldiers and National Guardsmen who had joined in the revolt – were killed in the attack. In turn they killed some 25 defenders inside the building either during the siege or in executions afterwards, chiefly those identified as pro-Soviet party officials, army officers and members of the despised secret police (ÁVH) stationed there; their bodies were desecrated in the aftermath. One final act was to display the paybook of the slain party officials and ÁVH personnel on their body to show they were paid substantially more than the average blue-collar worker.
The killing of the building’s defenders was widely used in contemporary Soviet media and later by the pro-Soviet Kádár regime in Hungary as one justification for the Soviet invasion which brutally suppressed the uprising.
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Flags with holes (HU. “a lyukas zászló”) very quickly became the uniting symbol of the short-lived revolution against hardline Stalinists in the governing party. The simple but strongly symbolic act of ripping out communist symbols was naturally repeated elsewhere, eg. during the Romanian Revolution in 1989 and the 1990 reunification of Germany.
As for this photo in particular, it was taken after revolutionaries had successfully seized the Budapest offices of the Hungarian Workers’ Party. Around 20 people – civilians, policemen, soldiers and National Guardsmen who had joined in the revolt – were killed in the attack. In turn they killed some 25 defenders inside the building either during the siege or in executions afterwards, chiefly those identified as pro-Soviet party officials, army officers and members of the despised secret police (ÁVH) stationed there; their bodies were desecrated in the aftermath. One final act was to display the paybook of the slain party officials and ÁVH personnel on their body to show they were paid substantially more than the average blue-collar worker.
The killing of the building’s defenders was widely used in contemporary Soviet media and later by the pro-Soviet Kádár regime in Hungary as one justification for the Soviet invasion which brutally suppressed the uprising.